Yesterday we played DnD!
But I didn’t write up a summary because I fell asleep.
So anyways, as the game began, the party was still in the
city of Tek, preparing to roll out. The
Useless Bard went off to play music in the town square, and Nory the Gnome
Warlock went off to summon a familiar.
He headed to a local temple, which had the kind of large Brazier he
needed to complete the summoning.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party was eating breakfast, when
they were brought a note from the mayor but a young child. Ulfgar tipped the child with a single copper
(much to the chagrin of the boy, who muttered that Ulfgar was a ‘cheap bastard’),
then read the note to Henk and Dragon Man.
It was a summons!
Completing their breakfast, they headed to the mayor’s
office. After their defeat of the
bandits, and their refusal to run off with the chest of copper coins, the mayor
trusted the adventuring party more than other adventuring parties. He brought up the recent attacks by Gnolls upon
the city, and mentioned that there was a fifty gold bounty on any Gnoll
head. But for the adventuring party, he
was willing to offer 100 gold coins for every Gnoll head, and Ulfgar, speaking
for the party, offered that at such rates the party would work to root out all
the Gnolls living in the surrounding area.
To aid them in searching out these Gnolls, the mayor
suggested they seek the aid of the old ranger known as Nightwing living on the
edge of town. Since the party doesn’t
actually have anyone good at tracking, they decided that this was probably a
good idea.
The party quickly found the Useless Bard in the town square,
then went looking for the Gnome Warlock.
Passing by a local religious temple, they heard the screams of the
insane emanating from within. A crowd of
city folk was clustered about it, wondering what could be going on inside, but
a helpful servant of the temple said it was nothing to worry about. It was just a strange little gnome,
praying.
The party decided to wait.
Inside, Nory finally summoned his familiar, which took the
form of a tiny, adorable little bobble-headed Cthulu, a minion of the true
Great One who slumbers deathless beneath the waves. ‘Spread the word,’ it whispered. ‘He is coming.’ Then it turned invisible.
(Out of game, Boyle bought John an adorable Cthulu
bubble-head figuring to represent his familiar.
It is pretty awesome.)
Nory exited the temple, and found his party waiting for
him. He didn’t say exactly what he had
been up to in there, and the party didn’t ask, because gnomes, right? What are you gonna do?
Ulfgar filled in Nory and the Bard on what the Mayor had
told them, and their new commission, and then the party headed out to the edge
of town to meet Nightwing the Ranger.
Unfortunately, when they arrived, they found not a older
human male ranger, but two human females, arguing. Dragon Man attempted to kick down the door,
because he is Dragon Man, and then Ulgar knocked politely. The party then learned from the two women,
who turned out to be Nightwing’s wife and daughter, that Nightwing had set off
into the woods a few days ago, but had not returned, and should have been back
by now. The daughter was planning on
heading out to look for him, insisting she knew enough about rangering to find
him, but her mother would not have it.
Ulfgar described the nature of their quest, and why they had sought out
Nightwing, and offered to bring the daughter with them and look after her, and
hopefully, with her own ranger skills, she could help them track the Gnolls!
The daughter’s name was Becky. Becky was not actually that good a
ranger.
The party set out in their wagon, hitching both the mule and
Dragon Man’s draft horse to it, and hiding Dragon Man with the rest of the
party in the back of the Wagon. Their
plan was to lie in wait for some of the gnolls to attack them, and they figured
this was less likely to happen with a seven foot tall Dragonborn riding along
beside them.
While traveling, Becky took out a book of her father’s,
labeled Monster Manual, and began to read to the party about Gnolls. Dragon Man, who is a lawful neutral PALADIN,
immediately began planning ways to kill her, so he could take her book. (Perhaps the reason the good aligned members of
the party don’t notice their Warlock is consorting with Dark Forces of Eternal Madness
is that, next to their Paladin, he seems pretty harmless.)
Soon, the party came upon an overturned cart, being scavenged
by hyenas. The party rode up and jumped
out to fight them off, and two of the hyenas turned into gnolls and picked up
dropped weapons to attack them. And then
a massive hyena emerged from behind the cart!
The party, of course, kicked their asses. Becky was pretty useless, but not as useless
as when the Bard tried using his awesome new spell Thunderwave. (Ulfgar’s Scorching Ray was also a bit of a
bust.)
The party cut the heads off the hyenas and Gnolls, then set
Becky to work trying to strip and cook one of the hyenas. They found nothing much of value in the
overturned cart, except 12 unbroken glass vials and the boxes used to carry the
remaining broken vials. They turned the
cart over, cleaned out the broken vials, and stored the heads in one of the
boxes. Dragon Man hooked his horse up to
the cart, proclaiming that the cart was his now.
They moved off the road and began hiding their carts, when
they heard the sound of hoof beats and bells coming down the road from the
direction of Sana Bell. Heading out into
the road, Dragon Man strode into the center, and suddenly a covered wagon
appeared, drawn by what appeared to be a Unicorn (but was later revealed itself
to be a white horse with a fake horn attached to its bridle.) The driver was a famous gnome illusionist,
who traded in magical trinkets! Dragon
Man offered to trade him the giant Hyena head for something, and the gnome
offered some kind of necklace, that made the wearer feel cold. To test it, he
asked Ulfgar to hurl a firebolt at him.
Ulfgar did. The firebolt did 4
points of damage. Angry that the cold necklace
didn’t do what he wanted, Dragon Man stated that he wouldn’t trade the Hyena
head for it, but the Gnome Illusionist insisted that the trade was already made,
and all trades were final. Dragon Man threw
the necklace back into the Covered Wagon, and then tried to attack the Gnome,
but the Gnome played with his head, made it look like Henk The Tank had a Hyena
head, and Dragon Man tried attacking Henk.
Ulfgar wanted no part of this and walked to the back of the cart to get
out of the way. A little annoyed by the
shiftiness of the gnome, who seemed to have cheated them out of the Hyena Head
for a useless bauble, Ulfgar looked into the back of the cart, and nicked the
first thing he could see. He then ran
off of their cart to hide it, and on the way, remembered that there was a
magical mechanical fish hidden there.
Meanwhile, the Useless Bard inexplicably managed to resolve the
situation with Dragon Man and Henk by casting Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on
Dragon Man, causing him to fall over laughing before he could attack Henk. Ulfgar ran back up with the Mechanical Fish,
and asked if there were any useful items they could trade this for. The Gnome offered a lantern whose light
revealed that which was invisible, and Ulfgar accepted the trade. The lantern revealed that there had been a
half-ogre in the Gnome’s Wagon the entire time, which gave Ulfgar a bit of
fright (apparently he hadn’t seen Ulfgar nick the bauble, as he was facing the
other way), and the party saw Nory’s familiar for the first time, but mostly
ignored it.
The gnome then headed out on his way, as Ulfgar suggested it
would be a good idea to leave before Tasha’s Hideous Laughter wore off on
Dragon Man. Coming too, Dragon Man apologized
to Henk for trying to attack him, and Henk was like, ‘it ain’t no thing’. Ulfgar
showed the bauble he had stolen to the party.
Unwrapping it from the cloth it was in, it turned out to be a black orb
with a question mark on it, the dot of which was a button. Press the button, and a voice asked a
riddle. If you gave a wrong answer it said
so, and a right answer for a ‘Correct!’
Nothing happened if you got the correct answer. It just seemed to be a riddle asking
toy. Checking his pockets, Dragon Man
found that the necklace, which they had thought was thrown away back into the
cart, had reappeared in his pocket. They
later determined that the necklace, though making the wearer feel cold,
actually protected you from the elements.
As it was getting late at night, party hunkered down, and
ate the hyena meat that Becky had taken forever to prepare. They set watched, and during Nory’s watch,
the second, they were attacked, with Nory alerting the rest of the party by
screaming in pain after two electrical arrows nailed him in the chest.
This battle did not go as well as the previous one. Nory quickly hid underneath the wagon as Gnolls
showed up, and the Melee people went off to fight them. Ulfgar started hurling firebolts into the
night, to try to scare people off, then went out to look for the person firing
electric arrows. Becky, who assumed
these Electric Arrows belonged to her father, began calling out for him, and
was quickly felled by them. Nory noticed
her lying limp from under the cart, and having been healed a bit by the Bard,
was able to stabilize her. In the middle
of the melee fight, The bard eventually fell, but only after Dragon Man had
joined Ulfgar in looking for the archer, leaving the two fallen people without
a method of being revived. Henk, like a
boss, took out the last of the gnolls in the camp, then found a healing potion
on the Bard and fed it to him. Revived,
the Bard was able to save Becky. Ulfgar
eventually found a trail through the tall grass they were in that lead off from
the encampment, and guessed that the archer, who had moved about the encampment
at seemingly impossible speeds, had fled.
He returned to the party, relating what he had seen.
The party bunkered down again for the night, sleeping
between the wagons. In the morning,
fully healed, they headed out with their animals to follow the trail left by
the archer, who appeared to have been using Becky’s father’s bow. Eventually, the savannah they were in turned
to desert, and they ran out of water, and members of the party began dropping
like flies and being set upon the pack animals, who carried on like
champs. Dragon Man was also fine, what
with his totally useless Necklace that protect you from the elements.
Eventually, they reached a cliff face, where at one point
the Bard had seen figures in the distance heading towards. Reaching the cliff, they finally found a new
source of water, and took an hour to rest and recuperate, not knowing what new
danger they were about to head into.
Here the session ended.
